I Killed The Soldiers, Now to Finish Off the Rest Of the Population

This is a harsh title I know and it is designed to catch your eye, and hopefully your attention as well. We are all aware of the Bush/Cheney Mafia Administration and their lies, destruction of the Constitution, and of course destroying this country's military. In the fire storm of whining by the McSame camp of how the "press favors Obama" and his trip overseas, the media blowups over anything they can find to raise doubts about Obama's suitability to hold office, ole 43 and Trigger Finger Cheney are quietly in the background trying to undo the last safeguards for the American worker in their traditional manner of secrecy and "under the cover of darkness".


In a story today in the Washington Post, it is reported that political appointees in the Department of Labor are;

moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush
administration a rule making it tougher to regulate workers' on-the-job exposure
to chemicals and toxins.
The agency did not disclose the proposal, as
required, in public notices of regulatory plans that it filed in December and
May. Instead, Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao's intention to push for the rule
first surfaced on July 7, when the White House Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) posted on its Web site that it was reviewing the proposal, identified only
by its nine-word title.
The text of the proposed rule has not been made
public, but according to sources briefed on the change and to an early draft
obtained by The Washington Post, it would call for reexamining the methods used
to measure risks posed by workplace exposure to toxins. The change would address
long-standing complaints from businesses that the government overestimates the
risk posed by job exposure to chemicals.
The rule would also require the
agency to take an extra step before setting new limits on chemicals in the
workplace by allowing an additional round of challenges to agency risk
assessments.
The department's speed in trying to make the regulatory change
contrasts with its reluctance to alter workplace safety rules over the past 7
1/2 years. In that time, the department adopted only one major health rule for a
chemical in the workplace, and it did so under a court order.

Before I go any further, I should offer a bit of disclosure. I have after many years of working in mental health and psychiatry, have switched my area of nursing to Occupational Health nursing. Basically we are nurses who work in the work place and try to ensure worker safety and train and educate employees about various workers safety programs and regulations. We also handle routine medical issues that anyone may experience, and respond to industrial or personal medical emergencies for anyone be it a tourist in the Smithsonian, a printer at the Washington Post, a civilian employee of the Pentagon, or even an excited lucky winner at the slots in Vegas or Atlantic City. (I myself work at the Pentagon, and part time at the Washington Post).

When Bush came into office, one of the first things he did was nullify workplace ergonomic and safety rules President Clinton had signed following the recommendations from scientific groups and OSHA. It was done with little notice except for the employee organizations and labor unions. He offered no explanation except it put too great a burden on employers and would cost Americans their jobs. (Funny how any safety and regulatory measure costs us jobs according to Republicans who then proceed to outsource them anyway).

This current changes the Department of Labor is trying to sneak through in a manner pioneered late last year by the FCC when it "deregulated" even further the broadcast market would also have a severe restrictive impact on what the next President could do to improve worker safety and is seen by many as a last parting gift to industry and big business. What is so foul and dangerous it purposes to change the way exposure risks to toxins are measured, something that is not an administrative function but a medical/scientific function. The Bush cronies of coursed offered up their own BS reasoning for the rule changes.

Last week, the proposal was defended in an opinion piece in the New York Sun
written by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a fellow at the conservative-leaning Hudson
Institute. She wrote that it would bring a "rationalized approach" to risk
assessments and probably move away from the incorrect assumption in current
rules that workers stay in a job, with daily exposure to the same chemicals or
toxins, for as long as 45 years.
Furchtgott-Roth did not mention in the
article that she was one of the consultants who worked with Labor beginning in
September 2007 on a $349,000 outside study of the risk-assessment
process.
The OMB has been trying to address the issue of risk assessment
since 2006, when it attempted to set new standards governing how a host of
federal agencies reach their conclusions. That plan was withdrawn after the
National Academy of Sciences called it "fatally flawed" because it lacked
scientific grounding.
Early this year, Deborah Misir, a political deputy in
Labor's office of the assistant secretary for policy, worked with the OMB to
draft a new risk-assessment rule. A former ethics adviser to Bush, Misir had
complained that the department's assumption of a 45-year working life overstated
the risk of exposure.
This of course has neither pleased union
representatives, workers groups or even those within the DOL. The manner in
which it has been handled has also been called into question.
Charles Gordon,
a recently retired Labor Department lawyer who worked on regulations in OSHA's
solicitor's office for 32 years, said the policy office does not usually take
the lead on rules involving risk assessments. "Normally, issues of health
science like risk assessment are performed by OSHA and MSHA, that have statutory
authority and expertise in the area," Gordon said.
Misir waited until April
to seek comments from the department's experts. They objected to both the
legality and substance of the proposal and recommended that Chao not pursue such
a rule.

This has not deterred this Bush advisor/appointee, and these changes are now the DOL's "top priority". So as my title implies, after decimating the military, Bush is now out to get as many of us as possible. How much you wanna bet McCain advocates this change as a policy to promote job growth in this country. Their slogan ought to be, "the faster they die or become too ill to work the faster a position opens up for you."